The Everything Everyday Math Book: From Tipping to Taxes, All the Real-World, Everyday Math Skills You Need

Introduction

JUST LIKE A PENDULUM swinging, the educational system in America has a history of fluctuating between teaching strategies. There are times when the American people and policy-makers feel that the liberal and performing arts must be emphasized more to produce kinder, gentler citizens. At other times, such as the end of the 1950s, the late 1970s, and the early twenty-first century, the emphasis on math and science is paramount. The problem with these swings is that a segment of the student population ends up discouraged, because they cannot make sense of the subject being emphasized. For example, in many high school math classes, it is not clear to the students how what they are learning is related to their everyday lives. This book is meant to help you better understand how much of the math you learned in math classes does apply to life outside the classroom.

I remember the first class my sophomore year at Manhattan College—a 9 A.M. literature class, twenty-one males sitting in the class (one math major and twenty engineers), and the professor announced that the course would be about American poets. You could hear the entire class gasp in unison. Not being one to get too involved in imagery, I assumed that my classmates reacted for the same reasons as I did. The professor then announced that we would read a different poet each class and then, at the end of the class, he would tell us what we needed to know about that poet for the exam. Well, that changed everything. It was a fun class, and I learned some interesting things that I might not have learned otherwise. No, I do not read poetry for pleasure or to gain insight or to be filled with admiration or moved to tears, but I do a little better when watching Jeopardy!.

I know I’ve had students sitting in my classes over the years who have had the same reaction to my math class as I had to that poetry class.

Calculators began appearing in the classroom in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that time, it was not uncommon to hear a teacher say to a student, to a class, or to another teacher that the students had to learn their addition and multiplication facts because they would not be carrying calculators with them all the time. How times have changed! Is there an electronic device that you carry in your pocket or purse that does not have a calculator built into it? Despite what your teachers may have said to you in the past, use it! Getting the right answer is still important, but getting the right answer quickly is just as important now. Was your teacher wrong? Well, yes and no. Ensuring that the answer (on your calculator) makes sense is an important skill you learned in school. All those estimating exercises that you did helped hone this skill. This is the key to using numbers effectively in the age of electronics. By all means let the machine do the work for you, but you must still be the one in control.

Whether you read this book to review arithmetic skills, to see how others use math on the job, or to gain confidence in your ability to fill out tax forms, you will see yourself in various places in this book. You are not alone in your struggle to feel more confident in your math skills. And if you have any doubt about the relevance of those skills to your life outside the classroom, this book will offer convincing evidence. It will illustrate many applications of math that you are likely to use every day.

CHAPTER 1

Are You a Math Phobe?

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the first unmanned object into space, beginning what history would call the Space Race. When Americans saw what the Soviet Union had accomplished, their immediate conclusion was that American students were not being taught enough mathematics and science to keep up with worldwide competition. An innovative curriculum called New Math was instituted in American schools far and wide, but ironically, it created a generation of citizens who felt they had no understanding of mathematics or numbers. The major problem with New Math was that the teachers who were asked to teach the material were not given enough preparation. Teachers who were not specialists in mathematics were asked to teach some very sophisticated material, and the confusion they felt was passed on to their students. Although curriculums have changed since that time, the problem of not understanding math still exists. In fact, if you are still reading this book, there is a good chance that you or someone you know believes that you do not understand math.

What Is Math?

Simply put, mathematics is a way for people to describe the world. Many people also think that mathematics involves complex ideas and concepts. For example, some of the best-known mathematical theories—such as Newton’s three Laws of Motion, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (which involves space, time, and gravity), and the Pythagorean theorem (which expresses the relationship among the three sides of a right triangle)—were created to explain how and why certain aspects of the universe exist. Those are big ideas! But math doesn’t have to be that complicated.

You Use Math Every Day

Everyone uses much simpler mathematics on an everyday basis. A child knows that if he has two cookies and his sibling has three, there is a difference in how many they have. People who have tickets to a play in a city 50 miles away from where they live know that they can’t leave their house only 20 minutes before the curtain rises if they want to make it to the show on time. These folks apply some sophisticated mathematics in deciding not only how long the drive should take, but also the probability of there being a traffic jam and how feasible it would be to use various alternative routes to get to the theater in time for the performance.

Take, for example, a trip to the supermarket. You use math when deciding what to buy. Consumers have used comparison shopping for years to make decisions based not only on price but also on quality. You probably consider all the facts before buying a product. How do product A and product B compare in cost? Will you eat more of product A than of product B, and thus get more nutrition from it, even if it is more expensive? Is it even worth it, in the long run, to buy product B instead of product A if you know you or your family won’t eat it? Even though it is tempting to spend less, by purchasing product B rather than product A, the money is wasted if no one in the house will eat product B. All of these mathematical considerations play a part in your decision, whether you know it or not.

As of May 2013, nineteen states and two territories have unit pricing laws or regulations in effect.

What Is Math Phobia?

If you have no confidence in your ability to solve problems that involve numbers, or if you just defer to other people because they are good at math, you are most likely a math phobe. What is a math phobe? When asked to respond to a math question, math phobes may have a physical reaction such as:

Acute anxiety (exhibited as nervousness, pounding heart, rapid breathing, sweating, nausea, upset stomach, or tenseness)

A feeling of panic or fear

Fuzzy thinking

A mental block in thinking

In extreme cases, the math phobe might even have feelings of helplessness, guilt, shame, inferiority, or stupidity.

Do you exhibit some of the characteristics described in the previous paragraph? If you answered yes, please ask yourself a few other questions: Do you know how much time you need to get from home to work, and the best way of getting there, depending on the time of day you leave your house? Do you know how to adjust a recipe so that you can make enough for the people who will be eating the meal instead of enough for the number of people the recipe is said to feed? Do you make financial decisions at work or at home? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you will have to say goodbye to the math phobe—and hello to the new you. You already do mathematics every day, so there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of! If hearing about a math problem that consists of multiplying two 2-digit numbers used to throw you for a loop, remember that while multiplying multi-digit numbers can be perplexing, you can use a calculator!

Math in everyday life is nothing like those rows of algebra equations given to you in high school. How do you know if you need an equation? Even if you don’t, how do you know when to add, subtract, multiply, or divide? Each math problem has clues that tell you what to do. You just need to know what they are. Here are some words and phrases that serve as clues to the most commonly used operations. Addition: sum, total, in all, perimeter. Subtraction: difference, how much more, exceed. Multiplication: product, total, area, times. Division: share, distribute, quotient, average, half, ratio. Equals: same as, is the same amount, costs.

The Modern Computer and Calculator

In the mid-1980s, there was a great buzz in the computer industry about the newest product hitting the market. The desktop computer for the home, it was proclaimed, would make everyone’s lives so much easier. In fact, computer designers told people, Think of all the productivity and leisure time you will have because the computer will do so much for you! They lied.

One result of the personal computer revolution has been that people now have more information to filter than ever before. Using the Internet to solve a problem or get an answer is second nature. But using a computer to seek a recipe for cooking chicken will yield more than a million search results. No wonder the computer intimidates so many people!

According to the website ComputerWeekly.com, the computers used to land people on the moon during the NASA Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s were less powerful than many of the hand-held calculators available to the public today.

Thanks to those computing marketers 30 years ago, you now have tools to do math for you. Your responsibility is to make decisions that affect yourself, your family, and your job. Many times, those decisions are based on data that must be computed. Let the device do the work for you, whether it’s in the form of a simple calculator, your desktop computer, your laptop, your smartphone, or an iPod, iPad, or other tablet.

Using a Calculator Is Not Cheating

Have you ever seen the 1980s movie Wall Street, with Michael Douglas? There is a scene in that movie where he uses his cellular phone while walking down the street. The phone in that scene relied on a battery pack that had to be carried in a bag with a shoulder strap because it was so large. The phone itself was about 10 inches long, and it weighed more than 2 pounds. The TI-10, one of the first Texas Instruments calculators (available in the mid-1970s) was about as big as that cell phone, and the battery life was so short that it was wise for the user to remain near an outlet in order to plug in the power pack while using the calculator. This calculator was capable of performing the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and it had a percent key.

Technology has come a long way since then. Cell phones are more compact and have a wider array of abilities beyond making phone calls. Nearly all cell phones include a calculator that performs the same basic functions that the original TI-10 did, as well as an application to compute tips in restaurants. There are many basic calculators about the size of a credit card that are powered by solar cells. Whether you carry it in a pocket or a purse, you have a powerful tool at your disposal should you ever need to have an exact computation, as opposed to an approximation. Taking advantage of the tools available to you is always a good decision. It is not cheating!

The Texas Instruments calculator NSpire CX CAS has as much random access memory (RAM), 64k, as did the Apple II computer from the mid-1980s. The Nspire CX CAS is about the size of a cell phone.

Learn to Love Math

Try to learn to appreciate math. The old adage Nothing succeeds like success certainly applies to doing math, and there is a great deal of truth to it. Self-proclaimed math phobes may find that a few experiences of successfully solving a math problem alleviate their fear of the next problem that will come their way. The math phobe may become a Math is okay person with enough successes. And someday, maybe the math phobe will reach the I love math level!

You Can Help Others in Your Life with Math

Try to be a good math influence. There are few things more painful for a math teacher to hear from a parent than I’m not surprised my child can’t do math. I couldn’t either. Avoiding negative statements about your skills or your spouse’s skills will keep your children from developing preconceived notions about their own abilities. Positive statements go a long way toward giving children the confidence to take on a new task. Here are some further things you can do to help others develop confidence in their own abilities:

Walk the talk. Try to convince others that what needs to be done can be done. As you find a solution, those watching you will notice your actions.

Don’t let them see you sweat. Naturally, you won’t mention that you are uncomfortable calculating the tip, but also try not to show any of the physical signs (squirming, trembling, lack of eye contact) that might come with being uncomfortable.

People learn from their mistakes. Everyone is a problem-solver; some people are just more adept than others at analyzing a problem quickly. Verbalizing the questions you ask yourself as you attempt to solve a problem has a number of wonderful effects. The observer is learning the art of problem-solving. Learning to ask questions gets you on the road to finding a solution. Even though there will be many times when the first questions asked do not lead to a solution, finding the right questions to ask is part of the learning process. Learning to evaluate a question and assess whether you can answer it is an important skill for everyone to have. Pass it along.

Math in the everyday world can be challenging for one big reason: There are too many steps! Even people with long attention spans and great abilities can get lost. Some basic problem-solving skills can help out:

Make a list. If your head is swimming with numbers, do a brain dump. In other words, list everything you know about the problem. Then cross off what you don’t need.

Draw a picture. It doesn’t take a Rembrandt to whip up a sketch of a room, and label its dimensions.

Make a table. Organizing the information so it makes more sense can point you to the solution.

Look for clues. Certain words will tell you what you need to do: per means each, squared means times itself, and even is means equals or is equal to.

Rewrite the problem. Sometimes you just need to write things in a different way. And, sometimes writing an equation with variables is just the thing.

Check your answer. It is a good idea to ask, "Is this answer reasonable?"

When do you use math?

Before you continue reading this book, make a list of the ways that you use math. As you read through the book, you may be surprised as to the number of items you add to this list.

CHAPTER 2

Whole Numbers, Counting Numbers, and Integers

You began learning how to count with numbers when you were a child. Questions like How many fingers am I holding up? and How old are you? introduced the basics of math, while other questions like Can I eat an entire cookie? introduced more complex concepts such as whole numbers. Whether you realized it or not, these questions helped you understand the mathematical rules for whole numbers, which in turn set the stage for you to feel comfortable doing math with all kinds of numbers.

The Most Important Skill of All: Estimation

Two of the most important numbers in all of mathematics are 0 and 1. In this book, powers of 10 (10, 100, 1,000, etc.) will be added to the list of simple numbers that many people already know. As you work through the rest of this chapter, you will learn to estimate your answer as much as possible. Although using a calculator to get the correct answer to complicated calculations is highly encouraged, having a ballpark idea of the answer beforehand is critical. After all, how many times have you heard of someone forgetting to enter a 0, or typing a number wrong into the calculator, and swearing that the answer on the calculator screen must be correct because the machine does not make mistakes?

How Much Is That Zero Worth?

When estimating, zeros are a big deal. Remembering how to manipulate numbers with zeros is really helpful—and simple. Rule: Thou shalt add zeros when multiplying by multiples of 10, 100, 1,000, and so on. Suppose you have this problem: 4,000 × 80,000. To get the answer, find 4 • 8, and then add the zeros on the end. How many zeros? As many as in the original problem. 4,000 × 80,000 = 320,000,000 (there are 7 zeros in all).

When you divide with huge numbers that have lots of zeros, do the opposite of when you multiply—subtract zeros instead of adding them. Suppose you have this problem: 120,000 ÷ 6,000. Find 12 ÷ 6, and then add zeros on the end. How many? Subtract the number of zeros in the second number (the number you’re dividing by) from the number of zeros in the first number (the number you’re dividing into). That’s how many zeros will be in your answer:

12 ÷ 6 = 2

120,000 ÷ 6,000 (subtract 3 from 4 to get 1 zero)

20

Determining How Reasonable a Number Is

A lot of everyday math relies on assessing the reasonableness of numbers. For example, when you hear that a person has an annual gross income of $50,000, does that match the statement that the person earns $15 per hour at his or her job? No. Someone who works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks is paid for approximately 2,000 hours annually. Thus you would expect a person who is paid $15 per hour to earn approximately 2,000 × $15 = $30,000 in a year, not $50,000.

However, it could be that the person works not 40 hours but 60 hours per week. Multiplying 60 hours per week by 50 weeks per year gives 3,000 hours annually. Multiplying this by $15 per hour gives a total of $45,000—a lot closer to $50,000 than to $30,000. In that case, the worker’s estimate of an annual income of $50,000 is not unreasonable.

The skill of estimating an outcome depends on more than the arithmetic of the problem. An important consideration in estimation is the size of the numbers and of the answer. For example, if the hourly worker were being paid $14.78 per hour, rounding this wage to $15 would give a reasonable estimate of the annual income, though a little bit higher than the actual figure. On the other hand, if the hourly wage were $15.25, the estimate for annual income would be a little lower than the actual amount.

Rules for rounding: look at the number in the place to the right of the place value you are rounding to. If that number is 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4, make it and all numbers to the right of it 0. If the number is 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, make it a zero as well as all the numbers to the right of it and increase the number to the left of it by 1. For example, when asked to round 83,741 to the nearest thousand, the place value to the right of the thousands is hundreds. There is a 7 in the hundreds place. Increase the 3 to a 4, make all the numbers to the right 0 and the rounded number is 84,000.

Another example comes from grocery shopping. Say you have decided that you will spend no more than $65 for groceries. When estimating the amount of the goods you are putting into your grocery cart, you might choose to round anything for which the cost ends in $0.25 or higher up to the nearest dollar (unlike what you were taught in school, where anything that ended in 5 or higher was rounded up to the next higher number). If you have items that cost $4.58, $9.89, $12.10, and $7.39, you might estimate that you will be spending $5 + $10 + $12 + $8 = $35 (compared to the actual value, $33.96). That approach to estimation will help you stay within your budget.

Basic Number Properties

There is an accepted order for how mixed calculations should be done in a problem.